AGL 039: Your F.A.T.E Equals Your Productivity

Today I’m going to do something totally different. I’m going to do a blitz week. 5 episodes in 5 days. These will be on the topic of managing your F.A.T.E. The acronym F.A.T.E stands for your finite resources, your Focus, Assets, Time and Energy. I first heard about this from Toddy Henry, host of The Accidental Creative. I highly recommend you check out his podcast and his books. I interviewed him a while back about his book, Louder than Words, Click Here to listen to that conversation.

In this episode I’ll set the stage for what’s time come. I’m breaking these four finite resources into their own shows so that you can go back and re-listen to the ones that you need the most work on managing. These are also perfect shows to share with those around you that might could use a boost in one of those areas as well. Stay tuned, we’ll dive into managing your focus tomorrow.

Time – Time management will be a longer podcast or training class at some point in the future, but here are some of the basics that I talk about when dealing with time management plus a bonus with the video of Randy Pausch’s time management talk (He’s my CSCI hero).

Energy – exercise, coffee, take breaks, work on things you love, Velocity & Inertia. Find your best time to work.

I hope you enjoyed this show, please head over to iTunes and subscribe and leave me a rating and review, even one sentence will help spread the word. Thanks again!

Today I’m going to do something totally different. I’m going to do a blitz week. 5 episodes in 5 days. These will be on the topic of managing your F.A.T.E. The acronym F.A.T.E stands for your finite resources, your Focus, Assets, Time and Energy. I first heard about this from Toddy Henry, host of The Accidental Creative. I highly recommend you check out his podcast and his books. I interviewed him a while back about his book, Louder than Words, Click Here to listen to that conversation. In this episode I’ll set the stage for what’s time come. I’m breaking […]

It’s easy to stop a train that’s not moving…But its hard to stop one that has already started. Velocity is defined as the speed of something in a given direction. Have you ever started on a project, task, program, or something and got into the “flow” state? What is flow you ask? Flow is being in the Zone. If you’ve played or watched basketball you’re familiar with this term. It’s that state where Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Steph Curry or Lebron James get into where it seems as though they cannot miss. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (notice I didn’t try to pronounce that […]

The Power of a Field Trip One way to inspire creativity and to motivate yourself or your team is to take a field trip. This will work if wherever you work for a nonprofit organization or a traditional office. Take a field trip. I’m going to tell you two stories to prove how beneficial field trips of any size can be. Small Field Trips My team took a little field trip a couple of years ago. We rode around with some technicians in their trucks. We wanted to see how they were using our products. We created a way for them […]

When we react to situations, we’re on defense. You rarely score on defense. Its much easier to score when you’re on offense. On offense, you’re responding to the situation, not reacting. There is a difference. Responses are thought-out, planned and not usually emotionally driven. Reactions are usually hap-hazardous, emotionally driven, and not thought through. Mistakes often happen when we react instead of respond. In this episode I talk about the need to respond instead of react, what happens when we overreact to situations, and some ways to avoid stress so that we learn to respond and not react. What […]

This is a special treat for all the listeners to A Geek Leader Podcast. My guest today is David Neal. Like me, he’s from the south and I’m sure you couldn’t tell that by either of our accents. He’s a well known keynote speaker, software developer, Microsoft MVP, and technical leader. He’s a father of 5 sons (that’s right FIVE!!!) and an amazing artist who sketches all of his keynote presentation slides. I’ve met David several times at conferences in the Southeast and most recently at CodeStock 2018. After hearing David’s Leadership Guide for the Reluctant Leader talk (see the […]

Your team doesn’t just “trust” you because of your title. When I started at my most recent position where I head up the IT group at a mid-sized company just south of Charlotte, NC, I wasn’t granted full trust of my team. Just like, when you get a new boss, you don’t fully trust them. You can’t tell them just anything at first. You have to learn how they react to things, how they accept feedback, etc. As a leader, we must remember that trust works both ways, and people don’t automatically trust you because you’re their manager. You must […]